'A Doll's House' by Ibsen

“A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen demonstrates thoughtful problems to the readers and the public. The playwright was a man of a hard character yet of a generous nature and was always attracted by open, loveworthy people able to sacrifice not only their well-being, but also themselves. Ibsen was the first to raise the curtain on the relationship in a family. It had to be done in order to understand the mechanism of marital and family happiness. According to Ibsen, the fate of the society depends on it..

The writer was not afraid to talk about the position of women in the society, about the right for their own point of view and equal rights with men. It was not new to the Norwegian drama. Ibsen began to build a new theater where the audience came not to rest and enjoy the performance, but to think.

“A Doll's House” is a story about family, about people who have lived together for many years, still never managed to be happy. It is a classic example of social and psychological drama. This drama is an illustration of how social conflict of the clash of natural human desires and inhuman laws of the society at first gets moral coloring (in the family it is being found out, whether Nora behaved ethically having forged her father’s signature on the bill), and then the scene moves into the sphere of psychology. The main attention is focused on the mental strife of the protagonist.

In the play Ibsen refused theatrically elevated speech, traditional monologues, remarks spoken asides yet addressed directly to the audience. Instead he used lively, expressive spoken language. The author sought for the naturalness and ease of the characters' behavior, forced to give up external effects, replacing them with expressive details. These details became poetic images that helped to reveal the main idea of the drama.

The most intense moment is when Nora expects her husband to read the incriminating letter written by Krogstad. She is not afraid of anything; she is waiting that her loving husband will forgive her. This expectation is turning into a desperate, furious tarantella, symbolizing the past life, which could not be restored. The miracle did not happen. It is the crucial moment of the play, the main event in Nora’s life. She decided to take a difficult step at that time; she wants to show her humanity, to become a person acting in defiance of the society. In the hands of her husband she became his favorite toy. The house, built on lies and deception, cannot be a real home: it is similar to a toy house destroyed after the first display of the cruel fate.

Ibsen's drama was not just a call to fight for women's independence and self-reliance; it advocated universal human rights, protested against the deceitful and hypocritical public laws. And it was a significant step forward in the creation of a new drama, which reflected not only their time, but also the thoughts and feelings of future generations.